CH152 Introducing Historical Theology: Luther to the Twenty-First Century
Overview
In this course, you’ll begin by studying the Catholic church and its theology on the cusp of the Protestant Reformation, setting the stage for the work of Luther, Calvin, and other Protestant Reformers. You’ll continue on to study the post-Reformation period and various Christian movements such as Pietism, Puritanism, and Methodism. A study of modernity, beginning with the Enlightenment and the scientific revolutions, introduces the advent of liberal theology and the response of conservative theologians to the challenges of modernity. The course ends with a study of the postmodernity—its meaning, and the variety of ways that Christian theologians have responded to postmodern thought.
Top Highlights
“So, in his book On Religion, which was a kind of book of apologetics, he tried to show that religion is universal and has to do with feelings—a particular kind of feeling that he labeled Gefühl. There’s an old English translation for the German word Gefühl, and so we translate it as the feeling of utter dependence. Schleiermacher was arguing that religion is universal and inescapable; that all human beings are, in essence, religious whether they know it or not or call it that or not.” (source)
“Religion within the Limits of Reason Alone. In that book he argued that religion is really only about one thing, and that is ethics [or] right behavior. In the book he describes Jesus Christ not as God incarnate but as the model for human behavior, the one who showed us how to do our duty. Immanuel Kant believed that reason can show us the right path of ethics. He portrayed Jesus as sort of an early philosopher, along the lines of Socrates but in Palestine, for example.” (source)
“Friedrich Schleiermacher believed that if Christianity was to survive the acids of modernity and was going to respond helpfully to the challenges of Hume and Kant and Hegel and other Enlightenment philosophers, it had to change. Theology could not simply be done in the context of the Enlightenment in the same way that it had been done before, for example, by the Protestant Scholastics of the seventeenth century.” (source)
“At the heart of deconstructionism is what’s called the ‘hermeneutic of suspicion,’ the idea that we ought to approach texts with a certain suspicion about their misuses, about their ideological tendencies and even, in theology, idolatrous tendencies. Dominant people groups often tend to use texts and writing and interpreting them to oppress others, the disadvantaged.” (source)
- Title: CH152 Introducing Historical Theology: Luther to the Twenty-First Century
- Author: Roger Olson
- Series: Logos Mobile Education
- Publisher: Lexham Press
- Print Publication Date: 2016
- Logos Release Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Courseware
- Subjects: Education › Theology, doctrinal--History; Theology, doctrinal › History
- Resource ID: LLS:CH152OLSON
- Resource Type: Courseware Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2019-06-21T19:06:31Z
Roger E. Olson is the Foy Valentine Professor of Christian Theology and Ethics at Baylor University’s George W. Truett Theological Seminary. Previously he served as professor of theology at Bethel University in St. Paul, Minnesota. He is the author of 18 books, including The Journey of Modern Theology: From Reconstruction to Deconstruction (IVP).
Dr. Olson was born and raised in the Upper Midwest of the United States and considers himself a “Bapticostal.” He grew up Pentecostal but became Baptist while attending North American Baptist Seminary. His PhD in religious studies is from Rice University in Houston, and he studied at the University of Munich with theologian Wolfhart Pannenberg. He served as editor of Christian Scholar’s Review in the 1990s and has served as consulting and contributing editor for Christianity Today. He is married and has two daughters and two beautiful grandchildren. He enjoys southern gospel music, Victorian gothic mystery books, and traveling.